Advanced Hospitality & House Guest Etiquette
by rubertgiles
Summary: When Jeff's building gets damaged by a storm, the residents of Apartment 303 take him in. (Canon-compliant through season 5, and selectively compliant after that; rated M for later chapters)
1. Chapter 1

Jeff was in the middle of brushing his teeth when the bathroom door opened and Abed strode in.

"Oh, Abed, hi," Jeff said, his words muddled by his toothbrush.

"Hey Jeff." Abed waved as he made his way over to a urinal.

Jeff rushed to spit out his toothpaste, glancing furtively at the back of Abed's head several times as he made a show of rinsing his mouth.

Abed hummed as he zipped his pants and joined Jeff at the sinks.

"So, Abed, maybe you could… not tell the rest of the group that you saw me brushing my teeth in here this morning?"

"Is there anything to tell?" Abed asked, meeting Jeff's eye in the mirror.

"No."

"Then I guess I won't be telling them about it." Abed raised his eyebrows.

For some reason, Jeff believed him. After six years at Greendale, he should probably know better.

It only took ten seconds, once they sat down in the study room, for Abed to announce, "Jeff's living out of his car again."

Several people said several things all at once—

Annie: "He's doing _what_?"

Britta: "Is Greendale's pay really _that_ bad?"

Frankie: "What do you mean 'again?'"

—while Jeff groaned loudly and shouted, "It's not as bad as it sounds!"

"Oh, I'm sure this will be good," Annie muttered, crossing her arms and casting a knowing glance at Britta from across the table.

"It's just because of the storm this past weekend, you guys. Honestly. It messed up my building pretty bad. My landlord is taking care of it, but he needed us to clear out in the meantime. So I've slept in my office the past few nights."

"Well, I guess it… could be worse…" Britta said carefully. "When are you going to be able to move back in?"

Jeff shrugged in an attempt to minimize the blow. "Three weeks or so."

"Three weeks?" Annie exclaimed.

" _Maybe_ a month."

"Living out of your car for that long sounds pretty ill-advised," Frankie said, her brow furrowed. "Not least of which because I've told Dean Pelton that he needs to stop allowing teachers to sleep at Greendale."

"Right, okay, you all have plenty to say about it, but I dare you to come up with a better idea. My landlord's too cheap to shell out the money for hotels, and Greendale sure as hell doesn't pay enough for me to cover those costs myself."

The group murmured amongst themselves, all of them decidedly more apathetic, until Abed spoke up. "You could stay with us."

"Oh, Abed, that's a great idea!" Annie exclaimed at the same moment that Britta said, "That is a _terrible_ idea."

Britta put her hands on the table and looked between Abed and Annie, her eyes intense. "You guys don't understand. I only slept with Jeff, I didn't even actually live with him, and I can tell you that he _sucks_ to live with. Do you have any idea how much time he takes to floss every night? And he needs to be alone in the bathroom to do it because he doesn't want people to see that he gets food stuck between his teeth."

"Insulting my hygiene regimen is a low blow, Britta." Jeff leaned to the side so that he could look past Britta to Abed. "And as much as I appreciate the offer, Abed, I don't know whether that would be the best idea. Aren't the three of you packed in there like sardines as it is?"

"That's part of the charm. It'll be _The Man Who Came to Dinner_ for a new generation—it might be horribly unpleasant, but we'll all learn something from it in the end."

Jeff rolled his eyes and said, in monotone, "Color me convinced."

"Come on, Jeff, we all know that it makes sense." Annie raised her eyebrows at Jeff when he twisted to look at her. "Britta's only complaining because she knows it, too."

"I'm complaining because I don't think Jeff should stay with three other people when Frankie hasn't even given a half-assed explanation for why she can't take him."

Frankie opened her mouth and closed it again once, then twice, before finally speaking. "I apologize, where are my manners? Jeff, as much as I'd like to take you in, I share a fairly small apartment with my developmentally disabled sister, and I'm reluctant to disrupt our household's homeostasis. I hope you understand."

Britta stammered toward an apology as Jeff said, "Don't worry about it, Frankie. Unlike some people in this room, I have a heart."

"Aren't you guys going to ask why Jeff can't stay with me?" Chang asked, looking around the table curiously.

"Chang, I'd sleep under a bridge before I'd stay in whatever hole in the wall you currently call home."

"Fair enough," Chang said.

"So does this mean you'll stay with us?" Abed asked.

"Are you guys going to let this go if I say no?"

"No."

Jeff rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "Then sure, why not."

"He hasn't even come over yet and he's already being an ungracious guest," Britta stage-whispered, but her words were ignored as Frankie kicked the meeting into gear.

* * *

Jeff had a faculty meeting at the end of the school day, so they arranged for him to pick up take-out on the way to the apartment. He spent nearly 20 minutes agonizing over which pizza toppings to get to keep everyone happy—why the fuck Britta refused to eat mushrooms, he'd never know.

He knocked on the door of apartment 303 and Annie answered. "Hi Jeff. Abed and Britta both made last-minute plans, so it's going to be just us for most of the evening."

"Oh." Jeff glanced down at the boxes in his arms. "Why didn't anyone text to tell me that before I bought them dinner?"

"Britta said she was going to," Annie said as she stepped back to allow Jeff in. "Maybe she forgot."

"Or maybe she's still mad that I'm here," Jeff muttered.

Annie sighed. "I was trying to be generous, but yes, you're probably right. You know what this means, right?"

"What?" Jeff dropped the pizza onto the table and turned to look at her.

"It means we should start by eating her pizza."

Jeff's eyes lit up. "I like the way you think, Edison." He handed over the top box on the stack.

They sat at the table together, both grimacing slightly as they ate – Annie because she hated black olives and Jeff because he hated green peppers – but they were determined, and Jeff's detailed description of the faculty meeting kept them both happy.

"Oh, and you'll love this," Jeff said eagerly. "Garrity spent fifteen minutes arguing with the Dean about the amount of funding for the next play, and you'll never guess how he tried to resolve it."

"No!" Annie exclaimed.

"Arm wrestling," Jeff said with a satisfied nod.

"How does Garrity manage to challenge someone to an arm wrestling match at _literally_ every meeting?"

Jeff laughed. "I wish I knew. It's so funny, though, you can always tell when he's about to instigate it. He does this thing with his eyebrows…" Jeff made a face, imitating Garrity, and Annie laughed harder.

"I can picture it. And then the Dean—"

"—made the whole room uncomfortable by saying something that shouldn't sound sexual, but coming out of his mouth, it did. Yeah."

Annie giggled. "I don't know why you even bother to go to the faculty meetings anymore. They're always so predictable."

"If I stopped going, you'd realize that it makes up about 90% of my material these days."

"That explains so much," Annie murmured.

"Yeah, keep track of the stuff I say at a committee meeting some time."

"All about the faculty meetings?"

"Whenever humanly possible. Especially since I've started to figure out which faculty Frankie doesn't like, because making fun of them has really gotten her to lighten up the past few weeks."

"Oh my God, you're so right." Annie's eyes drifted toward the pizza box, where only one slice remained. "I think that one's yours."

"Is not, I've already had six."

"No, _I've_ had six. You must have lost count."

Jeff leaned his elbows on the table and looked at her sternly. "You don't really think I'd lie about something stupid like slices of pizza, do you?"

"Don't make me answer that, Jeff. Just eat the pizza. Britta's probably going to get home any minute, all ready to complain about her failed date."

They stared each other down for nearly fifteen seconds.

Jeff ate the last slice.

* * *

Even though it had been quite some time since Troy left, Abed had never gotten rid of the bunk bed, so that was where they encouraged Jeff to sleep that first night.

And in theory, that should have been… well. Not ideal, but certainly better than sleeping in his desk chair at Greendale.

Jeff would have been fine if he just had to fall asleep with the added light of Abed's computer screen as he stayed up late watching TV.

He probably could have eventually tuned out Abed humming along to the score.

But what really got to him was Abed snacking on chips that Jeff couldn't stop picturing crumbling all over the bed above him.

"That's it," he announced, rolling out of the bed. "I need to sleep somewhere else."

Abed looked away from his screen briefly, not even bothering to pause his show as he took a bite of a chip. "Okay."

Wielding a pillow and blanket under his arm, Jeff padded out to the living room, which was blissfully dark. He squinted as he surveyed the room, trying to sort out where he could sleep. Britta was snoring away in her corner, so he had to steer clear of her… And he couldn't be too close to Annie or Abed's doors because he didn't want to startle them if they got up in the middle of the night…

Jeff curled up on the floor next to the kitchen, trying to decide whether this was better than sleeping in his office. His friends meant well, of course, but he was inching toward no.

There was a creak on the other side of Annie's door, and seconds later, her door creaked open, too. Jeff shut his eyes quickly, trying to feign sleep so that she wouldn't try to talk to him.

But he heard her walk toward the kitchen. She stopped near him and whispered, "Jeff." When he didn't answer, she sat on the floor next to him.

"That's not the face you make when you're sleeping, Jeff."

Jeff kept his eyes shut, but he answered. "I've told you, I wasn't napping last week, I was just resting my eyes."

"Sure, Jeff."

Annie allowed silence to linger between them for a few moments—Jeff couldn't have guessed whether she was expecting him to speak, but he didn't. Finally: "You know you probably could have asked Abed to stop whatever he was doing."

"I…" Jeff sighed and opened his eyes, but he stared at Annie's knee, rather than looking up at her. "I didn't want to disrupt his routine. You guys are already putting yourselves out enough to have me here."

"That might be true, but can you honestly tell me that you'd rather be sleeping on the floor next to our kitchen than in your office?"

Jeff scoffed. "That's not the point."

Annie hummed softly. "I don't want you to fight me on what I'm going to say next, because it's too late for us to be up late arguing."

"Never going to agree to that, but continue."

"Come stay in my bed. There's plenty of room. We can figure out something else for tomorrow, but you shouldn't be on the floor."

Jeff's objections died on his lips when Annie snatched his pillow out from under his head.

"Don't make me repeat myself," she whispered as she rose to her feet. "Now I'm going to do what I actually came out here for and get some water."

She stepped over Jeff, and he listened while she went into the dishwasher to get a clean glass, then while she filled the glass with water and drank it.

Resigned and disgruntled, he was on his feet too by the time Annie turned around to go back to bed. Moreover, he was tired enough that, when she smiled gently at him, he smiled back.

"Don't hog the covers," she told him as she led him back to her room.

Jeff couldn't remember the last time he fell asleep so quickly or slept so well.


	2. Chapter 2

It was still twilight when Jeff was jolted awake by Annie, who was shaking his arm just below his shoulder.

"Jeff," she hissed.

He jolted up into a sitting position, looking around frantically for a sign of… danger? Something wrong? Because either something bad was happening or Annie was waking him up for no reason at the crack of dawn, and he wanted to believe she wouldn't do that.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's 6:30," Annie told him, as though this was supposed to mean something.

Jeff _really_ wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt here, but that meant his alarm wouldn't be going off until 6:45 and he would have gladly taken that time. "That explains nothing."

She rolled her eyes. "In fifteen minutes, Britta's alarm is going off. I figured you should probably be out of here before that happens."

"It's early, Annie, I'm still going to need more."

"Do you want her to spend the next week calling you a lecherous old man just because I made you sleep in here and you didn't say no?"

This thought hit Jeff hard, and he found himself newly alert. As he scrambled to crawl out of bed, he said, "Right, okay, good point." He paused briefly with his hand on the doorknob and turned back to look at her. "Hey, um… thanks for this. It was much better than the floor."

Annie smiled gently. "Thanks for not being the lech Britta thinks you are."

Jeff almost threw back a friendly retort—something about how he _was_ a lech, perhaps—but Annie was still sleepy and her eyes so kind that all he could do was smile back at her. How did she always get him to warm to her so easily?

He closed her bedroom door slowly behind him, attempting to move quietly enough that it wouldn't wake Britta in her corner. His suitcase was still in Abed's room, and he had that in mind as his next stop until he turned around and saw that he was not alone.

Abed sat at the dining table, eating cereal and watching Jeff with a neutral expression.

"Um," Jeff said.

Perhaps he should have seen this coming, but he'd forgotten, in his early-morning haze, that Britta and Annie even had another roommate, let alone that that roommate was the reason he'd ended up in Annie's room in the first place.

"Morning, Jeff," Abed said, matter-of-fact enough that anyone else might have thought that Jeff emerged from Annie's bedroom every morning.

"Abed," Jeff said carefully. He forgot about getting changed, forgot about Britta, and gingerly sat down in the chair across from his friend.

Silence for a few moments, then: "You slept in Annie's room because of me, didn't you?"

"No, that wasn't… I just…" Jeff hesitated as he realized that by lying, he might provoke more uncomfortable questions than the one Abed was already asking—why else would he have spent the night with Annie? why was he trying to sneak out of her room before the others were awake?—and maybe he and Abed could do the adult thing and talk about it. "Okay, I sorta did, you're right."

"If I was bothering you, why didn't you just tell me?"

"You were generous enough to invite me here, but you have your own routine. I wasn't going to disrupt that."

Abed considered Jeff for a fraction of a second. "Don't worry about it. I'll be quiet from now on. I didn't invite you to stay with us just to make you uncomfortable."

"Speaking of that, Abed…" Jeff glanced down at his phone to gauge how much time alone they had left. 9 minutes until Britta's alarm went off, and he was going to assume that Annie wouldn't be out for at least another few minutes, either. "Why did you invite me? Hell, why did you tell the group that I needed somewhere to stay in the first place?"

"Do you remember our first year at Greendale, when we found out you were living out of your car?"

Jeff remembered it vividly, although he didn't much like being reminded. "What of it?"

"Back then, you didn't want to tell us because you were still convinced you were going to be a lawyer again, and you wanted us to see you that way. You thought you were better than us."

God, Jeff wished he could argue. "Okay."

"This time, though… I think you didn't tell us because you think we're better than you."

"What?" Jeff exclaimed, hating the defensiveness that he heard in his own voice. "That's not—"

"Neither of those things are true." He said this definitively, looking at Jeff with a stern look that conveyed that the matter was closed. "You're one of us. And you weren't going to ask for our help, so I just made sure to give it to you anyway."

Jeff sat dumbfounded, feeling the gravity of Abed's words in his gut.

"Don't worry," Abed murmured, "You don't have to say thank you."

From anyone else, that would be sarcastic, but as it was, it just gave Jeff the permission he needed to sit with Abed in silence until Britta and Annie's alarms began to blare.

Annie's door creaked open and she flitted across the living room, into the kitchen. Jeff considered her as she happily relayed the details of her forensics homework to Abed; considered Abed as he happily listened; even considered Britta, who groaned as she clamored to her feet and rubbed her eyes on the way to the kitchen.

Did he think his friends were better than him?

Sure. Not that he'd ever say it.

"I didn't know Jeff even owned pajamas," Britta said to nobody as she sat down at the table.

Abed and Annie glanced at him for the briefest of moments, looking him over—his non-descript tee-shirt and pajama bottoms left them totally unmoved.

"Why shouldn't he?" Annie asked.

"I used to say they were tacky." Jeff hoped that Britta would drop the matter now, because he remembered with sudden clarity that he once said something else to Britta about pajamas which, given last night's sleeping arrangements, he'd prefer she not relay.

"Meaning he wasn't able to show off his body while wearing them," Britta muttered. "He used to say that no woman would ever see him in pajamas unless they were an old married couple. But the joke was that he didn't ever plan to wear pajamas to bed with a woman."

Jeff knew that Annie and Abed were probably looking at him, but he was too nervous to see how seriously they were taking Britta's words, so he kept his eyes trained on Britta.

"If you're done commenting on my clothes, I'm going to take a shower."

"Shit, I hadn't even processed that—you haven't showered yet!" Britta exclaimed, staring at him as he rose to his feet. For the first time since Jeff accepted the offer to stay in their apartment, she did not seem antagonistic toward him. "You're…"

He waited for her to finish her thought, but she faltered and seemed at a loss, so he retreated into Abed's room to grab his towel and a change of clothes.

As he traced his way back through the apartment to get to the shower, though, he heard a chair scrape the floor behind him, and Britta stopped him before he could close the bathroom door.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

Whatever Jeff was expecting, it wasn't that. He blinked down at her, at a loss for words.

She wasn't done, though. "You're not the guy you were when we were sleeping together. And I know that, I do, but I guess it didn't occur to me that you might actually be a… pretty tolerable roommate now."

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Jeff mused.

Britta rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'm still prepared to say 'I told you so' if you pull any shit. I'm just going to give you the benefit of the doubt for now."

"Sounds fair," he agreed.

With nothing left to say, Britta gestured toward the shower, inviting him to claim the bathroom, and she retreated to finish her breakfast.

* * *

That evening marked Apartment 303's weekly movie night, which Jeff agreed to participate in with minimal duress from Annie. It was their choice of movie, rather than movie night itself, to which Jeff was resistant—they were working their way through Nicolas Cage's filmography, and Jeff felt he had already gotten all out of _National Treasure_ that he was going to get.

Annie sat Jeff down on the couch beside her and Abed shoved a bowl of popcorn into his hands and all three of his friends quoted along with the movie and Jeff… enjoyed it.

He glanced over at Annie as she hummed along with the music during the revelation of the treasure room, and she smiled at him. He enjoyed that, too.

Now that Britta had tentatively embraced Jeff's presence in their apartment, things between the four of them were… nice. They lingered around the television long after the movie was over, chatting about classes, committee business, family…

They went to bed late, all exhausted from the day.

Abed promised not to eat or watch Netflix in his bed, which left Jeff certain that he would fall asleep almost as soon as his head hit his pillow.

Perhaps twenty minutes later, however, as he found himself wide awake with Abed snoring above him, he couldn't help wondering what the problem was.

His phone buzzed next to his head, and he briefly questioned whether he should look at it—at Britta's urging, he'd skimmed the summary of some Huff Post article that said looking at screens right before bed could disrupt your sleep—but he figured he had nothing to lose when he was already wide awake.

It was a text from Annie.

 _Are you still awake?_

Jeff frowned at his phone, surprised that Annie was still awake when she, too, seemed exhausted when she retreated into her bedroom.

Rather than saying this, though, he retorted, _What if I hadn't been awake and your text had woken me up?_

 _Did it wake you up?_

 _No._

 _Then I guess we're fine._ She followed this with a winking emoji, and Jeff had to stifle a laugh.

He was trying to figure out the best way to ask why she was texting him, but she made things easy when, about thirty seconds, another message came through. _Seriously tho, you can't sleep either?_

Jeff blinked up at the slats that supported the top bunk as he considered his response. _I'm sleeping right now._

Pause at first, then: _Jeff._

 _No, I can't._

 _Can you promise not to laugh at me?_

He thought of Annie, curled up in the dark and biting her lip as she fretted over… something. What could she have to say that would make him laugh? _You know I'd never promise something like that._

 _Jeff_ , she replied again.

 _I promise_.

More than a minute passed in silence, this time, before his phone lit up again. _What if you slept in my room again tonight?_

And Jeff was not laughing, he was not laughing at all. Because he would never have asked, would never have dreamed of it, but now that she said it, he was willing to acknowledge to himself that that was exactly what he wanted, that that was what he'd been lying awake wishing for.

So he typed, _Okay_ , almost immediately. He was on his feet and out of Abed's room in what felt like an instant, and Annie opened her door for him just as he was reaching for the doorknob.

They were silent until her door was closed, but they didn't move back to her bed at first—they just stood a few feet apart, both a little nervous.

"I slept better last night than I have in months," Jeff admitted first. Because she told him to come join her, so he figured it was his turn to propel them forward.

"Me too," Annie breathed. "Having you here was… it was just really nice. I don't know what Britta's talking about."

Jeff swallowed hard. "Speaking of Britta… That thing she said this morning, about my pajamas…" About only getting into bed in pajamas with the woman he married.

"Don't worry about it, Jeff. You're just different than you used to be. Unlike Britta, I'm not interested in reading into what clothes you're wearing or not wearing."

"Right. Cool. Okay."

As they crawled into bed, Jeff hesitated before turning onto his side. He always slept that way when he was alone, but he'd felt weird about it the night before, not wanting to make Annie feel as though he was looking at her, so he'd stayed on his back all night instead.

This time, though, he curled up, and when some minutes had passed, when her breathing had slowed, he peeked at her.

She looked soft, comfortable, wonderful.

Jeff brushed a strand of hair from her face before drifting off himself.


	3. Chapter 3

Over the next few days, Jeff fell into a routine, pretending to go to bed in Abed's room and sneaking over to Annie once Britta began to snore. He woke at 6:30, so that he'd showered and sat down for breakfast by the time Britta woke up. Abed never asked why—never said anything about it at all, in fact—and Jeff didn't exactly feel inclined to provoke a frank conversation about it.

In fact, by the light of day, it felt silly, and he found himself wondering off and on whether he should just sleep in Abed's room. It had to be a fluke, how much trouble he'd had falling asleep without her.

After that first night, though, after Annie texted him and told him to come back to her room… After that night, Jeff knew, deep down, that he wasn't sleeping in Annie's bed because he couldn't fall asleep elsewhere.

He was sleeping with her because he wanted to. Because he liked it.

Not that Jeff would ever admit it aloud. Hell, he tried not to even think about it. Things with Annie had been very complicated for a very long time, but they'd struck a delicate balance. He didn't want to fuck that up with _feelings_.

Then Saturday came. Jeff always cherished Saturdays, cherished the opportunity to sleep in and, perhaps more importantly, the opportunity to avoid developing lesson plans for the coming week that would be low-effort but would trick his students into thinking that he cared about his classes.

Which was why, when Jeff rolled over and glanced at the clock to see that it was nearly 7:30, he initially didn't think twice about it.

He rolled onto his side and glanced at Annie's sleeping face and he smiled as he closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

And then he remembered where he was.

And then he remembered that he had no clue when Britta got up on weekends.

If he'd had any presence of mind, he'd have woken Annie up and asked her to check whether it was safe for him to sneak out there.

But Jeff was still drowsy.

He opened the door and had barely stepped into the living room when a voice from the kitchen said, "Oh good, Annie, you're up, I wanted to ask you something."

It was Britta, who was peering into the fridge. In his head, Jeff was screaming, but he didn't even have time to turn back into Annie's room before Britta had closed the refrigerator door and turned around to see him standing there.

They stared at each other a moment. Her jaw dropped just slightly. And then: "You're… not Annie."

"Good eye." Jeff hesitated for a moment before gently pulling Annie's door closed.

Britta stared at him hard, and she wasn't yelling but Jeff knew that she was probably ready to do so if he opened his mouth and said the wrong thing.

"I'm not sleeping with Annie."

"Right…" Britta said slowly. "So you're just coming out of her room at 7:30 in your pajamas because…"

"Because I've been sleeping in there. With her. But not _with her_ , just… we're not having sex," he clarified at last, exasperated.

"What a relief," Britta retorted in monotone.

"Isn't… it?" Jeff asked.

Britta frowned. "Honestly, Jeff, I feel like there are a few other questions that are a bit more pressing. Questions like, 'If you've _been_ sleeping in there, how many nights have you done this?' and ' _Why_ are you doing this?' and 'Have you been intentionally hiding it from me?' and 'Does _Abed_ know?'"

Jeff allowed these questions to hang in the air for a few moments before squinting at Britta and asking, "Are those not rhetorical questions?"

"Oh, God no, they are 'please answer these' questions."

He swallowed nervously. Neither he nor Britta had moved an inch, so there was still so much space between them, but he felt very vulnerable and scrutinized and he wished he could still be in bed.

"I've slept in Annie's room every night that I've been here. Abed knew. I got up earlier than you every morning because Annie and I didn't want you to find out."

Jeff had avoided answering the most difficult question, and he knew there was no chance Britta hadn't noticed, but she didn't address that. Instead, she strode over to the living room and gestured for him to sit across from her. As he walked over to her, she said, "The fact that you didn't want me to know suggests that you know how stupid it is."

He shrugged, and he didn't agree, but he didn't argue, either, and that said a lot more.

"You also probably knew that, unlike Abed and Annie, I would actually be willing to ask what the _hell_ you're doing." And what took Jeff aback, in that moment, was that she wasn't angry, she wasn't threatening. She just looked and sounded… worried. And he couldn't have said whether she was worried about Annie or worried about him.

Perhaps it was both.

"I'm just…" Jeff wasn't trying to stall, but he sincerely didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to say that would wipe that sad, anxious look off Britta's face and he didn't know what to say that would actually be the truth and he sure as hell didn't know if those things overlapped.

"The first night it was just because Abed was being a pain in the ass," he said carefully. "I wasn't able to fall asleep so I came out here and she found me and wouldn't let me sleep on the floor. And then she asked me to come back the next night, so I did."

"She asked you, so you… did," Britta echoed. She gave him a look that made him feel like she expected more out of him, but when he didn't continue, she prodded. "Why?"

Jeff was beyond uncomfortable. "I don't know, I wanted to."

"Right…" Britta leaned forward in her seat and Jeff was certain that the lecturing was about to start. "I'm going to say something, Jeff, and you're going to let me say it."

"Fine, go ahead."

Here it was. She was going to call him out on his shit, just like she'd said.

"As much as you try to pretend otherwise, you have feelings." That was… not quite what he was expecting. "Stunted, repressed feelings, maybe, but feelings. You even kind of admitted it last semester down in Borchert's lab, which was an interesting change of pace for you. And I honestly don't think you have bad intentions here, which annoys me because I'd _really_ love to be able to yell at you about it. I just…"

She paused, glancing from Jeff to Annie's door and back. "I just want you to be ready to go home when your apartment is done."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Britta rolled her eyes and stood up. "God, I guess we hit your vulnerability quota for the day. Just think about what I said, Jeff. For Annie's sake, as well as yours."

As much as he didn't want to, he thought of little else all day.

* * *

That week, Jeff had lived on Greendale cafeteria food, take-out, and Britta's groceries (only when Britta wasn't home, of course). But he knew very well that his wallet would thank him if he stuck to his Sunday routine of going out and buying his own groceries.

"I'm going to the supermarket in a little while, does anyone need to come with me?" he asked at the breakfast table.

"I wish I'd known that before I took the bus to get there yesterday…" Britta muttered at the same time that Abed said, "No, but thank you."

Jeff looked over to Annie, who was focused on eating her yogurt. "Miss Edison?"

Eyes on her spoon, she told him, "I'm trying to remember if I need anything," as if it were obvious. "I usually only buy groceries every other week."

Silence hung over the table for about ten seconds before she finally said, "Alright, I'll come."

And Jeff was about to make some snarky comment but then she looked up at him and gave him a small, soft smile and Jeff's heart burst, taking all thoughts of a snappy retort with it. He tried to ignore the warmth in his voice (and Britta's raised eyebrows) as he said, "Cool. I'll let you know when I'm ready to go."

The two of them almost never went anywhere alone, and Jeff suspected that he could count on one hand the number of times that Annie had been in his car, with or without any other members of the group. It was possibly a subconscious thing for Jeff—part of his attempt to maintain that _delicate balance_ that he was always hyper-aware of.

He started the engine and she immediately changed the radio to her favorite station (the twenty-somethings alternative-pop mix that didn't resonate with Jeff but didn't annoy him, either). It was in the middle of some song and Annie knew it, evidently, because she started to hum along as Jeff pulled out of his parking spot.

The previous afternoon, Britta had asked Annie to get coffee with her, in a tone that heavily implied that Jeff and Abed were not to consider themselves invited.

The two women had left the apartment for nearly two hours.

Jeff didn't think he was being paranoid by imagining that they had discussed his stay, even though Annie had said nothing to him upon his return, and she had made it very clear, when she went to bed, that she assumed he was still sleeping in her room.

("I'm going to make an early night of it, Jeff, don't be too noisy when you come in.")

He had sworn to himself that he wouldn't ask her about it if she didn't bring it up, but here they were sitting in silence and he couldn't help blurting—

"So Britta."

"Annie," she corrected him, her eyes on the road ahead.

This might have garnered a chuckle from Jeff if he weren't legitimately feeling a little bit stressed. "So _about_ Britta," he said instead.

And Annie did laugh because _she_ wasn't tense, _she_ already knew exactly where Jeff was going with this and _she_ could decide how he got there. "Yes?"

"She saw me coming out of your room yesterday."

"Yeah."

"I was convinced she was going to beat me up or chew me out to defend your honor but she didn't."

"No," Annie agreed.

"But yesterday, you two hung out for a while…"

"We did."

God, she really was going to make this as agonizing as possible.

Jeff glanced away from the road to look at Annie; she looked cool and collected and she was still nodding her head along to the radio. "Annie, c'mon. You know I'm trying to ask if she said anything to you about it. If she tried to talk you out of it."

"Did she try to talk you out of it?"

"No." Although it felt like it, kind of.

"Well, she didn't try to talk me out of it either." She paused and for a second, Jeff thought that was going to be it, and his stomach churned. Thankfully, she continued. "But I guess I can put you out of your misery. She told me what you told her and asked if it was true. I said yes. That was pretty much the end of it."

He frowned and twisted to look at her, and he could hear how petulant he sounded but he couldn't turn it off as he said, "You were gone for two hours."

"You're not our only conversation topic, Jeff," she retorted. She sounded amused, rather than annoyed, thank God.

One other question nagged at him, a question that he knew he wouldn't be able to ask.

Britta had asked him why he was sleeping in Annie's room. Had she asked Annie why she wanted him there?

"I have a confession to make," Annie said, and for a few moments, Jeff's heart beat faster.

"Go on."

"I honestly don't need to go to the supermarket yet. I just don't really get out of the apartment very often on Sundays."

And it was not what Jeff expected (wanted?) to hear but it somehow still relieved the knot of tension in his gut as he laughed. "Coming grocery shopping with me cannot be your exciting Sunday outing, Annie. That's a sad life and I refuse to even be on the periphery of it. If you came with me to get out, let's get out. Do something."

"W-what?" Annie sat up a bit higher in her seat.

Jeff couldn't blame her for sounding surprised. He sounded a hell of a lot more sure of himself than he felt, but he… he wanted to hang out with her. "If… if you want, I mean. You've lived here your whole life but I bet there's something you've always wanted to do and have never gotten around to."

She opened her mouth, but she seemed to suddenly think better of herself, because she shook her head. "I can't picture you wanting to—"

"That's not what I asked, Annie," he told her.

"Well…" She still seemed skeptical, but she said, "When I was in high school, I always used to tell myself I shouldn't take time away from my homework and my extracurriculars just to go to the botanic gardens, but I've heard they're beautiful."

Jeff tried to picture himself walking around with Annie and looking at flowers as they tried to navigate between families and tourists.

He was surprised to realize that he did not hate the idea. It seemed kinda nice.

So he turned into the first parking lot he could so that he could turn around. "Cool, let's go. It's near the zoo, right?"

Annie looked over at him, and because Jeff was waiting for traffic to clear, he could look back and see the genuine surprise in her eyes. "Yeah, I think so."

It seemed as though she wanted to say something else, but Jeff looked back at the road, and the moment was lost.

Their delicate balance was maintained.


	4. Chapter 4

One night—one morning?—later that week, Jeff found himself stirring at some un-Godly hour. It was pitch black outside and as he was pulled, gradually, toward consciousness, he became aware of some odd weight that had distributed itself on top of him.

And then he turned his head slightly and got a whiff of Annie's hair.

Everything came into very sharp focus then. When he had fallen asleep, Annie had already been snoring softly on her side of the bed, but at some point since, she must have rolled closer to him in her sleep. She'd curled in toward Jeff, her face inches from his shoulder; her legs close to his and one of her knees settled awkwardly on his thigh; her fingers splayed across his chest and her elbow hitting his ribs in exactly the wrong way.

Jeff had never been much of a cuddler, but he had dated one or two women who had tried to goad him into it by pretending that they had _just so happened_ to start cuddling him while they were fast asleep, when in reality they had fabricated the whole thing.

Frankly, though, there was no way Annie could have done that because the way that she had positioned herself just seemed too damn uncomfortable.

He swallowed, feeling hyper-aware of how her arm moved with each of his breaths, hyper-aware of how she exhaled and he could feel it on his skin just below the seam of his shirt sleeve.

There were two ways he could proceed:

1.) He could attempt to carefully extricate himself from her grasp, at the risk of potentially waking her up and revealing to her that not only had she accidentally started cuddling with him, but Jeff had _caught_ her and his first instinct had been to _pull away_.

2.) He could… go back to sleep.

Jeff took a few careful breaths, trying not to breathe too deeply or rapidly.

Slowly, tentatively, he moved his hand—the hand on his non-Annie side—and he slowly rested it over Annie's hand. He didn't link their fingers together but some of his fingers slotted under hers and it made the corners of his mouth quirk up but he tried not to think about it too hard.

He closed his eyes and breathed slow and tried to clear his head; it was maybe fifteen minutes later when he fell back asleep.

By the time he woke up in the morning, it appeared that Annie had carefully extricated herself from _his_ grasp, because she had cleared out of the room while he slept, completely undisturbed.

Annie didn't bring it up and neither did he.

* * *

The weekend came, and to Jeff's dismay, he realized that he'd been in such a hurry to get out of Greendale on Friday that he left the tests in his office that the Type A student in his class had already been nagging him about grading for a week. (It was remarkable how much less endearing this sort of nagging was to Jeff when it wasn't coming from Annie.)

So, after lunch on Saturday, he begrudgingly told the residents of apartment 303 that he was going into work and that perhaps he would stay there for the afternoon to grade so that he wouldn't be a buzzkill.

"Wow, Jeff Winger working over the weekend. It's almost like you're a real professor," Britta mused.

"How dare you suggest that I even vaguely resemble a real professor," Jeff retorted as he was on his way out the door.

The moment his friends called him a professor, it meant he was doomed to spend eternity at Greendale, and he wasn't willing to resign himself to that fate yet.

Jeff had gone in once or twice over the weekend before, and there was one undeniable benefit: somehow, Greendale didn't feel as much like a parasite that was gradually draining his life force when the halls of the school were not filled with students, when he wasn't having to worry about how he and the rest of the Committee were going to better Greendale next.

He thought he might grab the tests and go spread out in the cafeteria—it was locked over the weekend, but he'd swiped Britta's key and made a copy only days after she officially took over Shirley's Sandwiches.

Speaking of which, perhaps he would also help himself to one of Shirley's Sandwiches.

As he arrived at the cafeteria, though, he was surprised to discover the door already open.

Peering into the dark room, he said, "Hello?" His voice cracked and he cleared his throat and went on in an attempt to cover it up, announcing, "If there's a paintball game going on and no one told me, I am going to be very upset."

"Jeffrey, is that you?" a disembodied voice called from the direction of the kitchen.

He walked deeper into the cafeteria, bewildered. "Shirley?"

Immediately, Shirley appeared behind the counter of Shirley's Sandwiches, a smile spreading across her face at the sight of Jeff. "Oh, good, you're alone. I was worried you might be with Britta."

"No, no, just me… I'm assuming Britta doesn't know you're here, then."

She cringed and shook her head. "Not really. You won't tell her, will you?"

"Tell Britta that you snuck into Greendale over a weekend just to check in on the sandwich shop you told her you trusted her to run? You couldn't pay me to break that news to her, though I'd kind of love to see someone else do it."

And Shirley giggled. "Good. Now get over here and give me a hug, and we can catch up while I make sure that Britta's keeping the perishables properly sealed."

Jeff sat on the counter and watched Shirley go through the fridge, listening as she described her new life in Atlanta.

"I miss Andre and my boys, but I know I'm where I need to be right now. My dad needs me, and my boss does, too. He's really good to me, even if he is a little bit off his rocker."

"In a good way?" Jeff asked with a laugh.

"Honestly, Jeffrey, sometimes I don't think I could say for sure," she admitted, which had them both chuckling even more.

"So you're actually in town to visit Andre and your kids," Jeff asked, although it seemed logical enough that he just said it as a statement.

"That's right. I told myself that I wasn't going to come back here for at least a few months to give Britta some breathing room, but Shirley's Sandwiches is like another child to me. And frankly, I don't think I could leave one of my children in Britta's hands without checking in once or twice, either."

"Don't blame you," Jeff agreed, smirking.

Shirley smiled, but then her face fell and she said, "What are we doing, Jeff? We shouldn't be teasing Britta when we only have a little bit to catch up. You need to tell me about everything happening here at Greendale."

Jeff thought about their friends, thought about how irritated they would be upon learning that Shirley came into town and he was the only one who got to see her.

"I feel like Abed, Annie, and Britta would be very disappointed in me if I didn't point out that you could always get dinner with us tonight and hear from everyone."

Her eyes lit up, although her response was cautious. "I… would love to, but I don't know if I can justify it when I'm only here for the weekend with my family."

"Not even to hear about what it's like for all four of us to be living under the same roof?"

"All four of you?" Shirley exclaimed, looking at him skeptically. "What are you talking about?"

He shrugged. "I guess if you don't hang out with us tonight, you'll never know."

" _Jeffrey_." Even as her tone was chastising, though, he could see that he had won her over. "Next time I come into town, don't expect to see me."

"Understood."

* * *

After calling Abed to confirm that everyone was up for dinner, Jeff and Shirley agreed on a restaurant, and Jeff left Shirley to continue nosing around Shirley's Sandwiches while he tried to actually get some grading done.

He returned to apartment 303 about an hour before they were set to meet Shirley at the restaurant, and Abed, Annie, and Britta were eager to hear about how Jeff had run into Shirley.

"I happened to see her walking out of Baskin-Robbins with her kids while I was on my way to Greendale," Jeff said, matter-of-factly spouting the lie he'd promised Shirley he'd tell so that Britta didn't know that Shirley had been at Greendale to check in on Shirley's Sandwiches.

"Well I hope you told her off for not telling us that she was in town," Annie said.

"Of course I did, but I'm sure you plan to do it again anyway when you see her," Jeff told her, and he tried not to overthink the fondness he heard in his own voice.

Annie pursed her lips to suppress a smirk and didn't deny it.

* * *

"I think all three of you are crazy for letting Jeff into your place," Shirley told them with a laugh. "I always thought that apartment wasn't big enough for three, so adding someone else for even a few weeks…"

"He's actually surprisingly tolerable," Britta said.

"But where in the world is there enough room for him to sleep?"

No one spoke for a few seconds, Jeff not wanting to tell Shirley the truth, but feeling unprepared to lie; he was afraid to look at his friends to see their expressions.

Annie opened her mouth first: "With—"

"With me," Abed said. Jeff's gaze fell to his food abruptly, and he stared at his plate with wide eyes, trying to tune out his heart as it pounded in his ears. "I still have the bunk bed from when I shared my room with Troy. Jeff complains about having to sleep on a twin-sized mattress, but it's worked out alright."

"Oh, that does… sound reasonable," Shirley mused. "Still a little crazy, but at least you all have some space for him."

It was nearly ten seconds before Jeff could bring himself to look up at anyone else, and he tried to subtly catch Abed's gaze, but Abed was quite pointedly focused on Shirley. Jeff looked across the table at Annie, who also was looking at Shirley, but her poker face was worse, and a bit of a blush creeped up her neck.

Tentatively, praying that his aim was right, Jeff kicked under the table.

Annie's eyes flickered over toward him immediately, thank God.

Swallowing nervously, Jeff raised his eyebrows just slightly and mouthed, _It's okay_.

Not what he would have liked to say—frankly, he would have liked to tell her, "Calm down, you're looking suspicious and ashamed when you have nothing to be ashamed of," but something like that would _probably_ draw too much attention.

And Annie bit her lip and nodded, just slightly, before turning back to look at Shirley.

Jeff suspected that Abed had decided to lie on the spot, but he couldn't help but wonder why. It had made him more nervous than he would have been after telling Shirley the truth, because then, even if she had reacted by scolding him, the four of them wouldn't have been holding onto a lie that felt increasingly problematic with every person they decided not to tell.

Over the course of approximately five minutes, an anxious Jeff must have glanced over at Annie again at least twenty times, and half the time she was looking at him too. Finally he mouthed, _Stop_ , and she mouthed, _You stop_ , and neither of them looked at the other for a long time after that.

But Jeff found himself smiling and he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

They stayed well into the evening, long after their plates had been cleared and after Abed and Britta decided to order dessert, but finally, they asked for their checks, and after Jeff had turned his card over to their waiter, he excused himself to use the restroom.

When he came out, Shirley was standing there, and at first, he thought she was just waiting to get into the women's room, but then he processed her reserved yet thoughtful expression and he knew she was there to say something to him.

"Jeff."

"Glad we were able to go out with you tonight," he told her, hoping that he could keep the tone light.

"You four are keeping something from me," Shirley replied.

He raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me? Shirley, we're not—"

"Nuh-uh, don't even try to deny it. You and Annie have been looking nervous all night, and I wasn't going to say this at the table in front of everyone in case you all agreed to keep me out of the loop, but after taking so much time away from my family this evening for this lovely dinner, I think I deserve to know: are you two dating?"

"Are we… what?"

"Dating. You and Annie. You two were trading looks all night and it wasn't exactly subtle, let me tell you."

Jeff stared at Shirley, his expression one of genuine disbelief. "We're not dating. C'mon Shirley, I…" He faltered, and, lowering his voice, he said something aloud that he knew the whole group knew, but he couldn't imagine acknowledging it to anyone other than Shirley. "I decided a long time ago that I wasn't right for Annie, no matter what I might ever feel about her."

Shirley frowned. She turned around, looking back to their table to make sure that Abed, Annie, and Britta were still all situated at their table. Then she looked back to him, and her words were careful. "Look, Jeff. You might be right. But I don't know whether that's a decision it's fair for you to make alone."

"Annie doesn't always know what's best for her," Jeff retorted at a fairly aggressive whisper. He couldn't believe he was talking about it aloud, but he felt like if he spoke quietly, it kept things from feeling quite so real, quite so dangerous.

"Neither do you." And it seemed that she had no interest in saying anything more, because she raised her voice and her tone became abruptly cheery. "Now why don't you hurry back to the table while I use the little girls' room."

Before Jeff could even answer, he found himself standing alone and speechless in the narrow hallway.


End file.
